


The lucky one

by Hoeratius



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: But he needs to sort himself out first, Gen, Luckily they've got time, Prompt Fic, With hinting at Nile and Booker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26305825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius
Summary: 'We find her, we tell her to stop all this, she lies low until people have forgotten about her. We continue as we always have.’‘That’s your plan?' I ask. 'Andy, this isn’t like when I died. She’s an international celebrity. If she disappears…’‘I smuggled you out of an army base,’ Andy says with a shrug. ‘Two bodyguards are nothing.’Prompt: The latest immortal is a famous annoying celebrity.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	The lucky one

‘Oh my God.’

‘Nile?’ Nicky reaches over the table, his hand clenched around his spoon and ready to stab someone. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I stammer, as I scroll down my screen. _Hollywood actress Lucy de Witt DIES in violent stabbing during promotion for_ The Labyrinth of Dreams _in Piccadilly Circus._ The woman in the accompanying picture, taken from the posters plastered around London’s Underground, looks cool and ready for battle. I’d been planning to go see that movie. Now I’m not sure if I want to.

As it turns out, I don’t need to go to the cinema to see her. When I go to sleep that night, she is right there, her death playing out in HD.

Guess I’m not the baby any more.

**

_Hollywood actress Lucy de Witt SURVIVES in miraculous recovery after crazy fan attack on March 23 rd. _

_Lucy de Witt showing off her lithe arms and recovered chest in all-too-revealing tank top in the Southern France._

_Is Lucy de Witt still alive? 14 theories that will blow your mind about on the star_ _’s supposed death – and who might have replaced her._

Her Instagram shows her smiling her perfect smile on the red carpet, telling her followers that she is #Blessed with all the support from her fans since her attack, and that she uses Parodontax to keep her teeth this white. I scroll through the seven pictures she has already put up since the stabbing two weeks ago, and wonder how on earth Copley is going to hide _this_ trail.

**

Another week later, and we’re gathered around the table for a family council. Andy is holding a glass filled almost to the rim with wine, but she seems to have forgotten it as she scrolls through the document I’ve put together. News articles, social media posts, paparazzi pics, opinion pieces, popular conspiracy threads, and the announcement of two new roles, one in the sequel to _The Labyrinth of dreams_ , the other as the romantic lead opposite Charlize Theron in a new Netflix drama. Some extra digging by Copley has also given me her personal details: her London address, her LA address, her personal _and_ professional e-mail and phone number, the names of her agent and bodyguards and travelling hairdresser…

‘So what do we do now?’ I ask, as Nicky places a steaming plate of pasta in front of me.

Andy remembers her wine and downs half her glass in one go. ‘She’s in London until September, according to her travel schedule. We find her, we tell her to stop all this, she lies low until people have forgotten about her. We continue as we always have.’

‘That’s your plan? Andy, this isn’t like when I died. She’s an _international celebrity_. If she disappears…’

‘I smuggled you out of an army base,’ she says with a shrug. ‘Two bodyguards are nothing.’

‘A base in the middle of the desert, Boss. _Grazie, caro_ ,’ says Joe, as Nicky brings out the final two plates and sits down. Joe inhales deeply over his plate, eyes closed with pleasure. ‘Mmm, that smells good. Anyway - Andy, this is London. I know you can handle the bodyguards, it’s the paparazzi that give me a headache.’

I take a small sip of the wine, which I’ve learnt to appreciate now that I enjoy Nicky’s rather than the army’s cooking on a regular basis, and watch the two men exchange glances.

‘We need to get to know her first.’ Nicky twists the spaghetti around his fork but then just stares at it, a frown on his face. ‘She’s not like Nile, or Booker, or any of us. Kidnapping her will just traumatise her, drive her away. She must be scared enough as it is after that attack.’

‘Her security team, too,’ says Joe.

Andy sinks back into her chair, her lips tensed in an annoyed line.

I take back my laptop, looking at the glossy pictures of Lucy de Witt’s carefully curated public image. There are others, too – of her clutching at her stomach, her cream coat turning redder with each consecutive photo as the paparazzi run towards her. They were splattered all over the papers after the incident, like they were stills from a movie instead of someone’s life. I push the screen down and set it aside.

‘When is Copley arriving?’ asks Andy.

‘Another hour or so,’ says Joe. ‘Don’t look so sour, Andy. He’ll be able to get us access to her, one way or another. We can then work _with_ her to find out what the be-’

A knock on the door cuts him off. Joe frowns and checks the clock again, as do I, but the dial still points at seven. Copley isn’t due for another hour. We’ve – well, I’ve – already told Booker, so he knows not to come. Who else is there?

‘Probably just a delivery for the neighbours. I’ll get it,’ I say, when the others just look at each other with confusion. As the only one who still remembers what it’s like having a social life outside of the Guard, I relax my face into the blandest, least memorable expression I can, and go to open the door.

Lucy looks up from her phone screen and extends a manicured hand. ‘Oh, hello. Am I late?’

**

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, but I don’t eat carbs on Wednesdays,’ she says, when Nicky gets another plate from the cabinet. ‘Although if you have some cucumber and lemon water, that would be lovely, thanks.’

‘Have this.’ Andy pours another glass and pushes it across the table. ‘You’ll need it.’

She lifts the glass to her nose, swirls the wine around, and sniffs carefully. ‘Is this Pinot organic?’

‘It’s alcoholic,’ says Andy, leaning back in her chair. ‘Either that or, since you’re our guest, I’ll get out the vodka.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want you to make a fuss on _my_ account. It’s all right. Thank you for this offer, though, I really appreciate it.’ She puts the glass back on the table and folds her hands together like an employer at the start of a job interview. She looks at each of us expectantly, her eyebrows raised just so in the perfect impression of curiosity.

Joe returns from the hallway. ‘And you’re sure you weren’t followed?’

‘It was just me and Vincent. My driver.’

‘Nobody saw you come in?’

‘I don’t think so.’

He glances over his shoulder again, but there is no movement outside our door. Still, he doesn’t come join us at the table, leaning instead against the door post, his arms folded in front of his chest.

‘You must have a lot of questions,’ says Nicky.

The front legs of Andy’s chair hit the ground with a loud _thud_. ‘But so do we. How did you find us?’

‘Oh, my friend from school used to live just down the road, by the Arsenal stadium,’ says Lucy. ‘I recognised the street and then, last night – well, this is going to sound a bit strange, but I dreamt of your front door number and thought I’d give it a go. You guys have been on my mind a lot since, ah…’ She clears her throat and looks around the table. I can see her doing the math and finding our number lower than expected. ‘So, um… Why am I here? And who are you people?’

In hindsight, I probably should have realised what Andy was going to do. And still, when she grabs the chopping knife Nicky used for the parsley, I am too slow to stop her from planting it, pointy side first, into Lucy’s hand, pinning her to the table for half a second before pulling it back.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Lucy snatches her wounded hand with the other, the chair clattering to the floor as she leaps up. ‘Jesus effing _Christ_ , what was that for?’

‘Andromache,’ says Nicky, sterner than I’ve ever heard him before. ‘This is not the way.’

‘Isn’t it?’

We all stare as Lucy holds her hand up, the skin slowly knitting itself back into place in front of our eyes. The wound isn’t deep, and it takes only a couple of seconds before the only evidence of Andy’s attack is the blood spatters on Lucy’s linen dress.

‘That’s why you’re here,’ Andy says. ‘Now, sit down and have some wine. We need to have a conversation.’

**

_Lucy de Witt CANCELS Netflix project, citing_ _‘health issues’. Could this be linked to her BRUTAL ATTACK of the spring?_

_Lucy de Witt sighted with new MAN CANDY. Who is this dark and mysterious man? Click here for Lucy_ _’s 8 HOTTEST exes – RANKED!_

_Lucy de Witt bares all in open-hearted essay for Vogue. As she tells her fans about life after hospitalisation, the importance of friendship, and why we_ _’re wrong to assume she is together with the mysterious stranger she has been seen with, she also shares some of her best skin care tips. ‘I’ve just really learnt the importance of keeping certain parts of my life private.’ Find out MORE under the cut._

**

‘So we really don’t age?’ Lucy asks, as she pulls the skin on her forehead tight in the mirror. ‘I’ll just look like this forever?’

‘That seems to be the deal,’ I say.

She studies her reflection, tracing the line of her jaw with her nail. ‘It’s such a shame that this didn’t happen to me five years ago. I really think I hit my peak at 23, you know?’

‘Yeah.’ No. ‘Listen, Lu, I just need to check on something downstairs – you okay here?’

‘Hmmmm.’

Secure in the knowledge that her pores are of greater concern than my presence, I join the others downstairs. What with both Lucy and I being young and American, most of the socialising has fallen to me. The others don’t quite trust themselves not to test her immortality.

Andy, Joe, and Nicky all snap up their heads as I open the door, then relax when they see I’m alone. Joe returns his attention to his drawing, but the other two look at me with a combination of pity and fear.

‘Just needed some time away from her,’ I say. ‘Nothing serious.’

Andy nods. In lieu of her battle axe, which is a bit unwieldy in the middle of a small living room, she plays with one of Joe’s pencils, tapping it on either side of her knee too quickly to see. ‘It can’t go on like this. She needs to leave. I can’t live like this.’

‘You think it’s hard for you?’ asks Joe without looking up. His legs are thrown over Nicky’s, propping up his sketch pad. ‘We still have all of eternity ahead with her.’

‘I have the rest of my life with her as well, and this is not how I intend to spend it,’ Andy says. ‘She needs to play by our rules. No more movies, no more galas, no more guest appearances in – in _music videos_ – she’ll not just be found out, the entire world will know because it will be splashed all over the papers!‘

‘At least she’s doing another action movie,’ says Nicky. ‘She’s learning to fight.’

‘In a completely safe, choreographed, meaningless environment. It won’t do her any good in real combat.’ Andy doesn’t even notice that the pencil breaks, just keeps tapping the half she is still holding against her knee. She looks more stressed than last year in the Ukraine, when there had been a forty per cent change she might get blown up. ‘And meanwhile we’re here, babysitting this brat when we could be helping real people.’

‘She is a real person, Andy,’ I say. ‘I get that you don’t like her, but…’

‘Any real person wouldn’t be this goddamn thick!’ she says. ‘Flaunting about so the paparazzi takes pictures of Joe. Taking new acting jobs, new modelling jobs, so her face is literally on every bus in every city in the English-speaking world… By Ba’al’s bloody balls, she wrote an _essay on her anti-aging secrets!_ ’

I can’t help but chuckle at that. I’d actually quite enjoyed that piece; if anything, I’d thought the claim of an amazing skincare routine stolen from Charlize Theron was about as credible an excuse as we were ever going to find for the continued excellence of her looks.

‘What can I say, Boss?’ says Joe. He looks up smiling, though his face darkens somewhat when he sees what’s happened to his pencil. ‘Destiny moves in mysterious ways. All of this will make sense, somehow. Eventually.’

**

_The star has returned: Lucy to take up lead role in third and final instalment of_ the Labyrinth of Dreams.

_At least we_ _’ll always have Paris! Lucky Lucy spotted over a romantic coffee with blond artist in the world’s city of love._

**

The date would have been perfect, had I not been around.

Booker looks better than I’ve seen him in ages, nursing an iced tea, enigmatic as ever with his sunglasses. Lucy is all charm, brushing his arm when she gets up to go to the bathroom, curling her hair around her finger when he talks. And of course, he can’t keep his eyes off her, laughing at her jokes like they’re funny.

‘Would you girls like another drink?’ he asks.

‘A Cherry Coke Zero, please. With extra ice,’ she says. ‘And a slice of lime, not lemon.’

‘Nile?’

‘ _Un coca, s_ _’il-vous-plaît.’_ I do my best to mimic his accent. Still the words come out deafeningly American, and I pull a face.

Surprise flickers in his eyes, but he recovers quickly. ‘ _Mais bien-s_ _ûr, mademoiselle._ ’ He smiles and disappears towards the bar. The moment he’s gone, Lucy slumps in her chair and rolls her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you’re so into him, Nile. Recovering alcoholics are the worst. The only ones worse are current alcoholics. They’re such a handful.’

‘I don’t know what -’

She gives me A Look that I’d seen her character do in many a teen drama, her eyebrows raised knowingly, her smile turned inward with a sense of superior knowledge. ‘Listen, okay, I kind of get it. He is hot, and French, both of which are very valid, sexy traits. But you could get someone who isn’t a mess.’

Instead of looking back at her, I play with one of the napkins, tearing it into thin strips. Lucy has been told the rough outline of Booker’s betrayal - Andy and Copley banded together in a desperate if futile attempt to change her behaviour - but the details haven’t been shared. Perhaps if she knew, she wouldn’t be so hard on Booker behind his back.

‘He has been very lonely for a long time,’ I say. ‘His grief is the freshest. It’s… well, you know we don’t age. Any attachment is temporary for us, either because they die or because they figure out what’s wrong with us. That’s been really, really hard for him.’

Lucy gives me a small nudge. ‘It doesn’t have to be for you two. He’s obviously thinking it. Wondering.’

‘I don’t think that’s what was on his mind.’

‘Nile. Girl. I’ve had my fair share of regrettable men and failed liaisons,’ she says. ‘I can tell when a man is wondering if he’ll ever be worthy of me and working up the courage to suggest I might be interested. I’ve read it, played it, lived it, and Booker is like a school example. Those puppy eyes… He just wants you to give him a belly rub.’

I avert my gaze, not able to hide my smile. When I glance up again, Lucy is studying Booker’s back, shaking her head slowly. Her face has lost its playfulness, a quiet contemplation taking its place. ‘A hundred years?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How many has he got left?’

‘Ninety-one.’

‘Poor man.’ She runs a hand through her hair, getting it stuck at the start of her French braid. From the corner of my eye, I see a tourist recognising her and turn my face towards the wall as they take her picture. The cafe decorations are almost hysterically French, with black-and-white pictures of Paris and mournful cats. I could imagine it sporting the same design a hundred years ago, and ninety-one years from now.

‘Hey Nile,’ says Lucy.

I check for the tourists. They are looking at the picture on their phone, not taking any new ones. I’m just the black girl seated next to the movie star, not remarkable, not identifiable. I hope. God, Copley must hate what Lucy has done to his job.

‘Yeah?’

She swallows, looking younger than her thirty-three years. Much younger, rather than just the effects of immortality on her body. ‘You guys don’t mess around with time spans, do you?’

‘I’m still getting used to it,’ I say. ‘I still think in weeks, months, years. But the others… After a thousand years, what’s a decade here or there?’

‘A thousand years,’ she echoes. ‘A thousand years.’

**

_Lucy de Witt announces CAREER BREAK to go and find herself in INDIA. Click here for an overview of the Buddhist temples she might visit as she REACHES ENLIGHTENMENT._

_Maybe she_ _’s born with it - Lucy de Witt, known from the_ Labyrinth of Dreams _franchise, is chosen as sexiest woman alive for the thirteenth year in a row. De Witt (pictured) has taken a break from public life to focus on her mental health._

_Is It Time To Ditch Instagram? Lucy de Witt follows in stream of celebrities kissing the platform goodbye in favour of_ _‘an authentic experience of the self’._

**

‘Does the sexiest woman in America eat carbs yet?’ Nicky asks, measuring out the risotto rice.

‘Oh, don’t call me that,’ says Lucy with a groan. She and I are both sipping our glasses of wine (not organic, but locally produced here in California and thus meeting her environmental standards). She has ceased to worry about the carcinogens in wine, beef, mushrooms, and all other good food since Andy pointed out that she had been drinking alcohol for longer than the existence of script and still had a functioning liver. ‘And to answer your question: yes, Nicky, I do eat carbs now.’

His hand freezes over the scales. ‘ _Ma che cosa stai dicendo?_ ’

‘I know, right?’ She flashes him a smile, flirting even after ten years of not standing a chance. ‘I just - last week, Nile took me to this pizzeria and she…’

‘I told her to give it a try. Because it was my birthday.’ Something only she and I celebrate; the others are happy to join in on my death day, but Lucy is the only one who remembers the excitement of the birthday bash. ‘And what can I say? I spoke words of wisdom.’

‘She really did. And I realised… I’d been hungry for nearly twenty years.’ She shakes her head. She had a haircut recently, and her choppy bob makes her face softer, less luxurious. ‘Just constantly hungry, you know?’

I don’t, but Nicky’s lips twist as if he remembers.

‘And, like, I’d always assumed I’d be on a diet until I stopped being hot,’ she said, ‘but now I’ll be hot forever… Like, sometimes a girl just wants some bread. So what if I go up a size? Isn’t that what I do all the exercise for, anyway?’

‘India changed you, Lucia,’ says Nicky, but he looks overjoyed as he pours the rest of the rice straight into the pan. ‘Joe, he still goes without alcohol and I respect that. But a life without carbohydrates? It is not the Italian way.’

‘It is not the right way,’ I say. 

'Amen to that!' She clinks her glass against mine, and Nicky joins us. Something in his body language has changed now he knows she eats carbs; he is freer with her than before, handing her a parmezan to grate, sending her to cut parsley from the garden. Together, Lucy and I drink the entire bottle before dinner is even ready, despite Nicky’s continued exclamations that the wine is for the _risotto_ and to be enjoyed along with the _cena_ and why did he even bother feeding us _Americani._ It’s the first time I see him break out into Italian in front of Lucy - in a limited version, not the rattling, sleepy Genoese he sometimes throws about when he’s drunk, but she smiles every time he does it.

When we are seated around the table, Lucy’s plate - piled higher than any of the others, as if to compensate for the years of salad - does not go unnoticed.

‘So you’ve joined the side of the light,’ says Joe. ‘ _Buon appetito_ , Lucy.’

‘ _Gracias_ ,’ she says. Joe blinks, and I could see he wonders whether to correct her or not, but instead his smile brightens up the room, and he just winks at Nicky.

Lucy brings the fork to her mouth, giggling when she realises all eyes are on her. ‘Moment of truth. Does this taste better than skinny feels?’ She takes a bite, and the soft moan that escapes her risotto-filled mouth says more than any interview ever could.

‘Oh Nicky,’ she says, once she’s swallowed. ‘If I’d known…’

‘Any food you want, I’m happy to make for you,’ he says, a slight blush revealing his delight. ‘As long as it has carbs.’

She nods, slowly, too deeply enamoured by the flavours for any further reaction, and turns to eat more of her risotto, sprinkling it with the freshly chopped, glistening parsley. Andy smirks as she pours herself a glass of wine, although not quite as full as she tends to when Lucy is around.

‘Well,’ says Andy, setting the bottle on the table with more force than necessary. ‘Now that you eat like a warrior, are you going to start acting like one?’

The two lock eyes over the table. But all of us know: the movie star Lucy de Witt would never have eaten a double serving of cheese-loaden carbs. This is a new woman.

Andy smiles. ‘Training starts tomorrow. Don’t be late.’


End file.
